Dear FOTH members

I have not read any submissions on this site for quite some time, and I am not sure how the oxymoronic topic “Quranic Science” has drifted to US imperialism. However, since it has, I need to respond to Feroz Karmally’s post #123.

I made similar points earlier this year on a different topic, but here I go again. Mr Karmally's conspiracy theory regrettably requires us to return to the old mantra of the “war economy”, presumably of Western powers. I’m not sure where this idea comes from, but it is manifestly false. No country benefits economically from war. It is true that individual companies may do so, but this does not mean that war contributes profit to any nation’s overall economy.

With regard to the US, the following points need to be made (again!). First, we need to consider what proportion of its total economy is military. This comes out at 6%. Now, I cannot think of any reason why a nation would benefit economically from jeopardising the functioning of its main economy (94%) for the sake of a mini-economy of just 6%. If we were to rank nations according to the percentage of their total economy that is made up by their military economies, the US would rank tenth. Yet even those nations at the head of this list (the Czech Republic is top, I believe) still have more to gain from peace than war. Secondly, a large proportion of American military spending cannot be recovered, because the products cannot be exported. The most expensive weapons are so sophisticated and dangerous that the US government would never allow their export, even to close allies such as the UK.

When I made similar points on this site earlier this year, one contributor deplored the callousness of a nation like the US spending so much money on weapons and warfare. It’s certainly true; the Iraq war, for example, has been a tremendous drain on US finances, to the tune of billions of dollars a day. But that is the point – warfare costs the USA money, directly (military expenditure) and indirectly (lost market opportunities).

Recently a panellist on the BBC Dateline London talk show made the point that earlier this decade bin Laden issued a statement urging the faithful to hurt America where it hurts – in its pocket. His suggestion was to draw the US into expensive wars which it could not hope to win. If we see this as true, then what becomes of this suggestion that warfare is some kind of net gain for the US?

Mr Karmally asks why more people do not “see it” – the clandestine game that the US is supposedly playing. Well, we see it but quite rightly regard it as hogwash.

Yet I know that next to no one who reads the postings on this site will agree with me. I find that disturbing. It makes me wonder whether one requirement of being accepted in the Pakistani community is to expound any point of view that proposes conspiracies as certain truth.

Mr Karmally says that "the media propagates the threat of Islamic fundamentalists". No it doesn't. We cannot blame the media for all the beliefs and fears of the general public, in the West or anywhere else. Anyone who didn't sleep through the 9/11 outrage - and other bloody attacks, most notably recent ones in Pakistan - must realise that Islamic fundamentalists are a threat. I fear them (yes, I am an Islamophobe) and just count my lucky stars that I happen to live in a country which is far enough away from them.

Peter Joyce